Cuban Laws Mock Democracy

While Harming, Shaming America
Sunday, October 11th, 2015

              This week, October 8th, Fox Nation used this AP photo to illustrate an article written by Ben Shapiro/The Daily Wire. Any Fox reference to Cuba, of course, is a propaganda piece bashing the island's very existence but one of Shapiro's paragraphs was, nevertheless, interesting. He wrote:

           "Today, Democrats clearly believe America's allies are her enemies, and her enemies are her allies. How else to explain a new Morning Consult survey showing that Democrats now view communist Cuba more favorably than they do our democratic ally Israel." 
            I'm a lifelong conservative Republican, not a liberal Democrat and not a right-wing Republican in America's two-party political system. Mr. Shapiro's interesting paragraph, I believe, could have included this explanation: Billions upon billions of U. S. tax dollars each year are routinely given to Israel in economic and military support; millions and millions of U. S. tax dollars each year are swallowed up by unchallenged Cuban-American sources supposedly to bring about a long-long-awaited {since 1959} regime change on the island while subliminally creating a lot of very rich Cuban-Americans who seemingly only have to hold up their hands and say, "Hey! I'm anti-Castro. How much is that worth?" It is worth a lot. If you check Tracey Eaton's Along the Malecon blog, it might take you all day to read the actual names and actual salaries {from Freedom of Information statistics} of anti-Castro zealots getting very rich on, at last count, 32 regime change programs lushly funded by unwitting or uncaring tax payers. Eaton recently posted the exact and staggering salaries of the scores of "journalists" at the plush Radio-TV Marti operation in Miami. And later he posted a new Radio-TV Marti advertisement seeking highly paid workers who can produce programs/documentaries that will mock the Cuban government. In essence, it is U. S. taxpayers and democracy that are being mocked. Fidel Castro is now 89-years-old and unwell. But if his revolution survives beyond his lifetime, be assured that the lucrative Fidel Castro Industry in the United States will continue for another six decades or so. Regarding the poll that Fox Nation mocked yesterday because it had a positive notation about Cuba, perhaps it indicates that a majority of Democrats believe that some of the billions in tax dollars routinely given to help Israel and some of the millions routinely given to hurt Cuba {or enrich Cuban-Americans} could, perhaps, be spent on some needy and worthwhile U. S. projects. If that analysis is politically and socially incorrect, it is also, I believe, realistic. Ask the over-worked U. S. Coast Guard.   

         This photo is courtesy of the U. S. Coast Guard. This week spokesmen for the Coast Guard expressed dire concern about the uptick in Cubans making dangerous treks across the Florida Straits to reach the "freedom" or maybe the welfare and/or luxury of Miami. One of the reports showed a 14-year-old Cuban girl debarking from a flimsy craft and wading ashore with others to touch U. S. soil where she joined her father, who was shown on video with his arms around her leading her away. She said that human traffickers have spread the word that U. S. laws favoring Cubans might be changed. As the Coast Guard knows, U. S. laws designed to entice Cubans to Florida grossly discriminate against all non-Cubans because only Cubans are home free with benefits starting when their front foot touches down on U. S. soil. That's known as the Wet Foot/Dry Foot law and is one of countless U. S. laws designed to hurt Cuba while sating the revenge motives against Fidel Castro that still fester in a second generation of a few rich and powerful Cuban-Americans. Secondarily, the U. S. is grossly over-burdened by an endless plethora of laws designed to enhance the bank accounts and political ambitions of Cuban-Americans, and only Cuban-Americans. Cuba's Fidel Castro-led Revolution overturned the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the first day of January, 1959...with the Batistianos and Mafiosi fleeing to quickly restructure their economic and political empire in South Florida with Miami as their capital and where unchallenged paramilitary units were created to quickly recapture the island. As it turned out, they have...incredibly...been unable to recapture Cuba after all these many decades. But, by the 1980s they had captured the U. S. Congress, which permits them to dictate Cuban policy, which is enforced on their behalf by the financial and military superpower.
             {NOTE: If you doubt that calculated deduction, it probably means, among other things, that you are totally unfamiliar with two brilliant books -- Julie E. Sweig's "What Everyone Needs To Know About Cuba" and Ann Louise Bardach's "Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana."}.

       This photo is courtesy of Tracey Eaton. Tracey is a professor at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. I knew Tracey when he was the chief of the Dallas Morning News bureau in Havana. He remains the best investigative journalist, via his Along the Malecon blog, regarding U. S. laws related to Cuba. The above photo shows Alan Gomez making a speech this week at Flagler College. Gomez is the primary USA Today columnist on Cuban issues; he qualifies for that position on America's largest newspaper because he is an anti-Castro Cuban-American zealot. As with other mainstream U. S. media, an unbiased journalist would not be permitted to report on Cuban issues. It's been that way at least since 1976 when Emilio Milian, a Cuban-American journalist, complained about such things as the terrorist bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455, and then got car-bombed himself. That being said, Gomez this week focused his speech at Flagler College on the possibility, as remote as it is, that President Obama's efforts at normalizing relations with Cuba might...HEAVENS FORBID!!!...result in doing away with some of the most flagrant U. S. laws that empower and enrich Cuban exiles while grossly discriminating against everyone else -- laws such as Wet Foot/Dry Foot and the scores of tax-funded laws supposedly aimed at creating a "regime change" in Cuba but mostly designed to funnel an endless stream of tax dollars to Miami for such lucrative projects as Radio-TV Marti, the laughable anti-Castro propaganda machine that has sucked and pipe-lined enough money from Washington to Miami to fund an endless string of mansions from Miami to Coral Gables. Gomez, in that insightful speech at Flagler College this week, seemed mightily worried that the recent detente with Cuba might...HEAVENS FORBID!!!...mark the demise of U. S. laws that starkly benefit Cubans and grossly discriminate against everyone else. Speaking of the very infamous Cuban Adjustment Act, Gomez said, "I think it's absolutely going to end, but I think it's going to take a while. It's harder and harder to justify specialized treatment of Cuban migrants." WOW!!! Did he really say, "specialized treatment?"

        The mainstream U. S. media mocks democracy when the chief qualification to report on Cuban issues is to have a vendetta against Fidel Castro that fuels anti-Cuban zealotry that mitigates against innocent Cubans on the island while providing Cuban-Americans unfair advantages, codified by easily mandated Congressional laws that discriminate against anyone not a Cuban-American or Cuban-American sycophant. USA Today's Alan Gomez is a case in point. So was his speech at Flagler College.

          It was wrong in 1952 when the world's greatest democracy teamed with the Mafia to support a vile Banana Republic dictatorship on a nearby island for the purpose of raping and robbing the island at will.

         And, as Cuban-American Emilio Milian tried to explain before he was car-bombed, it was also wrong for the world's greatest democracy in 1959 to accept the immediate and eternal resurrection of that overthrown Banana Republic on U. S. soil. Two generations of pusillanimous Americans allowed those two things to happen way back in the 1950s. The U. S. democracy is still paying dearly for those two mistakes. Alan Gomez, USA Today's Miami-based expert on all things Cuban, didn't mention either Cuba's 1950s Banana Republic or America's ongoing Banana Republic in his speech this week at Flagler College.

Meanwhile...............

        ....................U. S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker has concluded her trip to Cuba this week. She is shown above being hosted by Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. Ms. Pritzker, on behalf of President Obama, spent two days trying to assure the Cuban people that the U. S. is sincerely trying to reverse its belligerence course towards the island. Upon her arrival back in the U. S., Ms. Pritzker said, "President Obama wants to see the embargo lifted but he realizes it will take time." That official statement is a reflection or recognition that a handful of Cuban-Americans in Congress can continue to dictate a Cuban policy that benefits them and harms everyone else. But Ms. Pritzker's trip was friendly and successful.

          These two members of the U. S. Congress from Illinois, Cherl Bustos and Rodney Davis, will arrive in Cuba on Sunday. They will be leading a huge agricultural trade mission seeking to increase commerce with the island. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce, the Illinois Farm Bureau, the Illinois Soybean Growers, and all other major farm enterprises in Illinois will be represented on the trip to Cuba Sunday. Cherl Bustos and Rodney Davis, on behalf of their constituents, are confronting a few powerful entities in the U. S. Congress that remain intent on perpetrating a Cuban policy that appeases a few and displeases everyone else.

          Tom Donahue, the President of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, strongly supports President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Mr. Donahue has made significant trips to Cuba, including a speech at the University of Havana in which he praised the renewed entrepreneurial spirit of Cubans.   

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